Paul Rice is the CEO of Fair Trade USA, a non-profit organization that aims to provide farmers fair prices, workers safe conditions and communities sustainable resources in developing nations.
The Badger Herald sat down with Rice to discuss Fair Trade, entrepreneurship and student activism.
The Badger Herald: How has Fair Trade worked in Madison and what has the response been?
Paul Rice: What we’ve discovered is people want to do a lot more than just buy Fair Trade products; a lot of people want to go above and beyond that and get engaged, get involved and spread the word.
The Fair Trade Towns movement gives people a chance to hold events, promote Fair Trade products and get local store owners more involved.
Fair Trade Towns has only been around three years, but Madison, as you might guess, is once again a pioneer in getting involved very early on in organizing a Fair Trade Town here.
BH: How have students influenced the Fair Trade movement and why do they identify with their mission?
PR: Students have kind of been at the cutting edge of social movements in our country for a long time. If you think about it, any and every social movement that’s ever emerged in this country seems to have had its roots in one way or another in a student movement and Fair Trade is no different.
Since we launched the Fair Trade label in 1998, campuses across the country have gotten involved and students have found in Fair Trade a new model of activism. A lot of student activism historically has always been about fighting something we oppose, fighting back, but Fair Trade is this powerful positive alternative that you can actually support and that complements some of the other kinds of activism that often go on on campus.
BH: What do you think about the current controversy on campus between the University of Wisconsin and its ties to Adidas, which a student group is protesting because of recent concerns over the corporations use of sweatshops?
PR: The reality is that campus activism around the sweatshop issue is a big part of what’s making companies sit up and take notice and try and do something. Companies can no longer afford not to do anything … Is there enough? Absolutely not. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely. So I applaud campus groups here and anywhere who are focusing on this issue and educating people about the issue.
BH: You’re giving a series of guest speeches at entrepreneurship lectures at UW. What will you be discussing with students there?
PR: When I was a student, business was seen by a lot of activists as the enemy or as the problem. So the social movement or the movement for change really was in no way engaged with the business community or with entrepreneurship.
I think times have changed. I think today’s social activist and today’s student realizes increasingly that partnership with companies and market-based approaches more generally speaking are often needed in order to solve social or environmental problems.
